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A 49 years old taxi driver from Bucharest was beaten to death by an 22 years old driver, Wednesday night, in a row over a parking place. The young man was trying to park his car in a relatively crowded zone in the Romanian capital. The taxi driver reportedly started to honk at him aggressively, trying to prompt him to speed up. According to the eye witnesses, the suspect was so annoyed by the honking that he got out of his car and started to hit the cab driver.

Another man was wounded in what seems to have been an industrial accident at an ammunition factory in Sadu, Romania. Fire was still present on the scene at noon, as fire fighters were attempting to put it out. It is yet unclear what lead to the explosion, but the plant has a long history of similar incidents.

Anatolie Ciumac, a Moldovan national residing in Romania, was held on Thursday by Romanian prosecutors, following a request filed by Spanish authorities. He was eventually released, pending a ruling over his arrest by the Bucharest Court of Appeal. Ciumac, a professional fighter with connections to the crime underworld, is the subject of an international arrest warrant. He stands accused of an incident occured in 2002, in a Spanish penitentiary. He has a long record of violent incidents both in Romania and abroad. Among them, he tried to litterally bin a TV presenter while being a guest in a live show.

In an exclusive interview on Romanian TV channel PRO TV, on Monday, Cheeky Gabriela gave her account of the “shoplifting” incident that occured in Britain.

“We had had a meeting on Tuesday about a part in a gangster movie in which we (the Cheeky Girls) were to play the leading parts. We got our scripts and then Gabriela went away for a few days to visit her boyfriend. She read the script and, on Friday, she took a break. She went to the store, bought a salad for which she paid and then she realized that she had forgotten to also buy a bottle of apple juice. She took the bottle and then she left”, tells Monica, Gabriela’s sister, interviewed as a guest on PRO TV’s “Happy Hour” talk show.

“I exited the store without realizing what I had done. It struck me that I hadn’t paid when the security guard came running after me. Things got even more serious when the police arrived. I am ashamed, but I didn’t do it on purpose. It was a bottle of juice that costs 2 pounds”, added Gabriela, also a guest at “Happy Hour”.

An incident allegedly involving actor Nicolas Cage and two of his associates was captured on video by an amateur cameraman in Bucharest, Romania, on Sunday morning.

In the footage, a man resembling Nicolas Cage shouts furiously at another person, challenging his counterpart to hit him. The actor is claimed to have said repeatedly “I would die for honour”, using also profanities. Cage was reportedly taken to his hotel by his security guards after the said incident.

A week ago, another incident involved Nicolas Cage’s staff, when a disgruntled extra called the police, reporting that he’d been kept outside in the cold for a whole night, while the actor was allegedly kept warm inside his trailer. The authorities took no measures, as it was established that no law had been broken.

Nicolas Cage is filming in Romania the sequel to “Ghost Rider”, in which are also staring Violante Placido and Ciaran Hinds.

Romanian football player Adrian Mutu admitted to the incident in Firenze, where he attacked an Albanian waiter, but claims that he was provoked. “The waiter threw racist slur at me, saying that I should die just like the nurse in Rome”.

In the Full Up club, where the incident took place, there were allegedly other Albanian patrons, who also commented in racist terms about Mutu’s presence in the bar. Earlier that evening, Mutu asked for a bodyguard escort home, where he had left his wallet, so that he could pay the bill for the evening. After having settled the amount, the waiter allegedly called Mutu a Gipsy and said that he should die, like all Romanians in Italy.

After the incident, Mutu and the Albanian waiter, Berat Racaj, made peace. Mutu’s coach, Serbian Sinisa Mihajlovic, also said that he wants no consequences from the incident.

A woman of German extraction has attempted to address Angela Merkel, in Cluj Napoca, Romania. Gisela Prak, of German ethnicity, is reported to be the wife of Khaled Matar, a Palestinian suspected to be linked to the Al Qaida, and currently serving years in prison in Romania.

Gisela Prak tried to hand over to Merkel a petition regarding some problems that she has about a piece of land. Her document also tried to raise attention to the problem of. stray dogs. Security agents stopped her at the last moment, as she was approaching Merkel at the time the German Chancellor was walking through Cluj Napoca.

Unlikely as it may seem, it is only possible in Romania: the Roma Party and the nationalist movement “Noua Dreaptă” (the New Right Wing), sworn enemies, share a floor in a highly central office building in Bucharest. Both organizations were given headquarters not only in the same building, but also on the same floor – and this was the beginning of a beautiful series of rows.

Many a time, Romanian nationalists and Roma activists clashed as they met on the hallways. One incident involved a pepper spray, allegedly triggered by a Romanian nationalist right in the face of a Roma representative. When the Roma headquarters were spammed by “Death to Gipsies” flyers, the suspicions immediately were directed towards the New Right Wing activists, who denied any involvement. And the scandals go on…

The Roma claim they are being harrassed, while the Romanian nationalists reply that the Gipsies are trying to frame them, because the nationalist movement has foiled many of their plans to access European funds. “The money never gets to the poor Gipsies and it is always used for dodgy Gipsy music shows”, claim the Romanian nationalists.

“Noua Dreaptă” is a famous organization, that claims to defend the Romanian nation’s identity against “Gipsy contamination”. The organization has always been vocal about condemning the legalisation of homosexual relations, amongst other things.

Victor Ponta, the president of Romania’s Social Democrat Party, has been involved in a spectacular car crash, as he was taking part in a rally in Iaşi, Romania. The car, driven by Edi Kelety, got out of control, as the pilot was tackling a tricky bend. In split seconds, the vehicle tumbled and stopped. Luckily, both the driver, and the co-pilot, Victor Ponta, remained unscathed after the incident. “I must disappoint my political rivals, I am unharmed”, said Ponta after the adrenalin rush wore off.